Editing

Good editing is something you don’t notice

It’s true. When something is well edited, you read through it without even thinking about how it’s put together. And that’s the secret of good editing. It should be so well done that you don’t even notice that it’s been done.

So what does an editor do? They take a manuscript – it might be a book, magazine feature or even an entire magazine – and read through it for content, sense and correctness.

Let’s say, for example, that you’ve written a piece about travelling in Queensland for three months and you want to send it to a travel magazine. An editor will read it for structure – does it make sense in the way it’s written. They will check for consistency – spelling of names, places, the tenses used – and format. Is it easy to understand? Are there footnotes that need to be included? Have relevant facts been checked? They won’t rewrite any of your work but will make relevant suggestions where required.

Editors often copyedit at the same time. A copyeditor checks spelling, grammar and punctuation, and this is something that you can also have done separately. If you are confident that your work needs no editing, but think it might benefit from an overall check for errors, send it to the copyeditor.

When a graphic design job for a flyer, brochure or catalogue comes in to zoom design + graphics we automatically check it for spelling and grammar – it’s a service we include in our prices because we like to send out work that’s correct!

For larger jobs such as annual reports, magazines and books there’s a separate fee for editing and/or copyediting, dependent on the size of the job. Or you can even have us edit and/or copyedit on a job that’s being designed elsewhere – we don’t mind. We’ve edited literally hundreds of magazines and editorial features and more than 10 books on a range of subjects. What can we say – we love words!